(...) Now, to make this project happen everyone's contribution is required. Whether you want to help through pre-ordering your copy now or instead through a crowdfunding donation - every little helps! This project has been carried for years by very few people, they have brought it a huge way - and so close to its realisation. I truly hope in the next 21 days we can bring it over the finishing line jointly.
Read MoreIf you follow its path consider yourself in the business of turning yourself into a spiritual adult. Now, the paradox on this path is this: For many years you'll be the baby, the teenager and the adult all in one person. Life doesn't come with an instruction leaflet; all boundaries are temporary in nature. As part of your journey with the Quareia material nobody will disciplinise you, except for yourself. And nobody will praise you, except for yourself. Someone once said, 'Integrity is what you do when nobody is watching'. Without integrity you can still have a fulfilled live, believe me. You might even be able to become a magician in the traditional, sad sense. But you certainly won't get anywhere with Quareia.
Read MoreOver the last months Josephine McCarthy and I have been working quietly on a project we called 'Quareia'. This Medieval Latin term refers to 'a place where stones are squared'. It seemed a fitting metaphor for a place where also we are shaped and born as magicians. And that is what Quareia is meant to become: a new and completely open magical school - without fees, structures of hierarchy or imbalances of power between students and teachers. A place to be shaped for every magical practitioner who is searching for a new way of learning, integrating and practicing magic. All the way from beginner to adepthood.
Read MoreWhenever the topic of magical titles or grades comes up I felt pretty divided. On the one hand I couldn't care less about symbols of hierarchy invented by humans and labeled onto other humans. At the same time, the way my mind worked for the first decade of magical training I really needed something that acted as milestones to map out the magical path I was following. At IMBOLC we used the classical 10° system mapped onto the Tree of Life. I remember the first three years, practicing daily for at least an hour and probably having done about 16 practical and theoretical exams before I was granted the grade 1°=10 Zelator... -- So what does it mean to me today, if someone calls me an Adept? Is this a title I should accept or refuse?
Read MoreJosephine and I have been collaborating on various magical projects for several years now. A side effect of this partnership is that I receive wonderful lessons from a true adept and she gets a brick wall to bang her head against. Or almost. At least it's fair to say that initially our approaches to magic were diametrically opposed: Josephine teaching a very organic, though incredibly pragmatic approach to visionary magic - and me having just emerged from more than a decade of rigorously structured ritual work and occult philosophic studies. So when we first met it could have easily been the perfect clash of paradigms. Yet, it turned out to be the opposite.
Read MoreNow, in my eyes we are confronted here with an essential consideration about the nature of the Great Work. And that is the question of its pace and speed. People often say ‘You cannot speed up the harvest.’ Often when I hear this I get impatient and think to myself: ‘Right. But you can certainly forget to sow, water and shield your crops.’ (...) So the question that emerges seems to be: How do we marry the virtues of discipline, focus and commitment with their balancing counter-weights of letting go, accepting, experiencing and immersing ourselves into what is offered to us? In short: how do we marry our male and female sides to become one in the Great Work?
Read MoreBefore you learn how to sit still, before you learn how to breathe, before you learn how to cast a circle, before you even learn how to focus your mind, ideally the very first thing you learn is how to look. That is: How to look into the talking mirror of your inner contacts and listen to what they tells you. For most of us in the Western Tradition this talking mirror is the Tarot. What you see in it depends on what you put in front of it - which question, situation, sickness, being, vision or dream. However, whatever it is you expose to this mirror its answer will be unapologetically straight forward.
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The 'North Gate’ is a book as daring in its approach, dense in its content and demanding in its techniques as a line of metal hooks in a steep rock face. Simply reading it will amaze you about what real everyday, practical magic can do to yourself as well as the world around you. Just like a steep rock when faced from down below this book will also scare you - about the sheer amount of work that lies ahead of you and about how insufficient your own foundations suddenly might seem.
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The following chapters explore the subject of Resilience and Renewal from the viewpoint of the practicing magician. The tools and models we will apply, however, will not be ‘magical’ by any means. Instead they stem from various fields of modern research such as behavioural science, science of sports or performing arts. Such choice of tools is not meant to devalue any magical approaches on the subject, but rather highlight their wide absence in the Western Tradition as we will see. Still, irrespective of their origins none of these tools will work unless they are practically applied - repeatedly.
Read MoreOver the last weeks I spent a lot of time diving deep into current research on empathy and its relation to the common psyche of mages and witches. I summarised what I learned in this article. Yet, once finished realisation hit me that I had missed an essential point. What this was, was to reflect on the purely practical implications of empathy in magic - outside of the realms of psychology, sociology and history. So here it is...
Read MoreThe last months have been really intense. They began to change my approach to magic more radically than many years of practice had done before. So much is going on in fact I cannot predict at all where these tides will take me in the long-run. Actually I might not be making any progress at all - instead I might have started to go backwards? I guess thinking of progress in a linear way is another one of the concepts I’ll need to give up in order to move forward.
Read MoreI never thought a single book could contain an entire library. I never thought a single book could contain the actual workload, the depth of practical guidance that easily fills an entire lifetime as a magical adept. With the final part of Josephine McCarthy’s Magical Knowledge trilogy, however, this is exactly what you are holding in your hands.
Read MoreIn a previous post I shared an overview on the human constitution according to Gnostic Hermetism. The differentiation of inner organs as Vitals, Elementaries and Elementals is essential for a deeper understanding of how magic and magical Yantras work as we will see.
Read MoreReading and writing about the works of Emil Stejnar opened a fascinating door into a new magical paradigm for me. Yet, at the same time my own magical practice is strongly influenced by the techniques and inner pathways Josephine McCarthy lays out in her seminal works.
Read MoreAfter almost 10 months of preparation I consecrated my new temple today. We had moved houses in September. Cleaning out my old temple, which had been in use for almost four years, had felt like sawing off the branch on which I was sitting, cutting down the roots that gave me strength and a place in this world. Yet, it had to be done. As my wife always says: 'You got to die one death, if you are lucky you only get to chose which one.'
Read MoreJosephine McCarthy’s new novel The Last Scabbard is not a novel indeed. It is an exercise in magical vision waiting to be activated. In ancient Tibet sacred text were buried to be found by designated people in the future and unfold their power when the time was ripe for what they had to say. Similarly, there is a secret text in this book, buried in the earth of a fantastic novel, waiting to be released by each one of us as a reader.
Read MoreWith the recent release of the Magical Knowledge III I thought it's a good time to share a fundamental magical insight I only realised through Josephine McCarthy's liminal books. Actually it's a quite embarrassing to admit that I have spent so many years practicing magic without understanding this very basic principle - as everything you want to achieve in magic really flows from it. Yet, embarrassing or not - a life led to looking good must be pretty boring? You simply miss out on all the playfulness. So here we go...
Read MoreOn writing the fourth chapter on the Holy Guardian Angel I discovered something interesting. It relates to our readiness to translate philosophical theory into living ritual work - and how this competence changes, evolves and matures over years of practice and experience.
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